HELLO, WORLD! Did you miss me? Of course you did.
I may have been incommunicado, but we have not been idle. In fact, a lack of idleness has been the primary cause of the communications blackout. (Well, a lack of idleness and a certain rather addicting new game. If I don't play, my villagers starve! It's a matter of life and death!)
But I promise we have been incredibly busy. Want to see? Of course you do.
First of all, we finished and installed the screen doors, which have been a godsend, since July is usually the month here in Portland we get one or two of those bizarre week-long stretches where the sun is not only out and shining, but also it's obnoxiously hot. (We have one air conditioner, a window unit in the bedroom. The rest of the house? Not so much.) Luckily, it's been tolerably cool in the evenings, so we can open the doors and windows and air the place out, and now that we have fancy screen doors, the cats can press their little noses against the screen and yet not escape into the big wide world. Also, Dad and I were able to calibrate the doors so they make a fantastic slam when they close. LOVE IT. (And we only broke one hinge doing so. I'd call that a rousing success.)
When we signed for our lease on the old apartment, we'd originally been told we couldn't paint. When I managed to wheedle our landlord into letting us paint a few years later, it was the best day ever. I love painting. It's a giant, messy, hugely involved project, but when it's done - and done right - it looks amazing. Enter Exhibit A, our giant fancy new living room. I knew I wanted gray walls, with natural trim. I'd painted the apartment living room a velvety matte gray, and it felt very cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Contrary to what one might think, having gray walls in a dreary climate like Portland's isn't depressing. We had white walls for the longest time, and THOSE were awful. Even a crisp white turns dingy on dark rainy days. I love gray walls, and there was no alternative.
I originally envisioned something like this, only maybe with natural baseboards:
Source: Pinterest. I like it because it's crisp and modern,
but also acknowledges the heritage of the house.
I've always gotten my paint from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore under the Morrison Bridge - right on my way home, my poor wallet, SO HORRIBLY CONVENIENT - but since they moved out past Mall 205 a couple of months ago and had a giant clearance sale that I MISSED, their paint stocks have been painfully depleted. I went in expecting the usual giant warehouse full of $15 five-gallon buckets, and found a single quart of deck stain. SIGH. I DON'T EVEN NEED DECK STAIN. (Yes, I bought it anyway. I fully acknowledge I'm one desiccated cat corpse away from having my own Hoarders episode.)
That being said, we still needed paint. Next best thing to salvage paint? Recycled paint. I convinced Jesse to drive us up to the Metro paint store, where we got five gallons of Mist Gray for forty-five clams. Not bad. (No actual clams were harmed in the purchasing of this paint. Are we still allowed to refer to money as clams, or is that not cool anymore? Was it ever cool?)
So...I had paint. Mom came down and helped paint the ceiling a bright sparkling white, banishing the horrible beige that the previous owners painted on the walls...and the ceiling...and the light fixtures...and the exterior...and parts of the deck...and the mummified mouse behind the fridge...NO MORE BEIGE. We must paint ALL THE THINGS.
Including me. White freckles!
Unfortunately, gray is really tricky color to work with, since it can read as blue, green, brown or even purple depending on the ambient light, the surface texture, and the color of the furnishings around it. The Mist Gray that was a lovely, neutral gray in the showroom read a light nautical blue on our walls. It was fine, but it wasn't at all what I was going for. So, being the crazy enterprising person that I am, I mixed in a half-gallon of bright orange I had sitting around (hoarder) and got a gray that turned into a warm sage green next to our bright floors.
Definitely not blue, but also not the color I was going for. However, it's acceptable.
(And no, I don't have three cow-colored cats. Pecan is just pretending she's not a rabid attention hog.)
Okay. Sage is fine. It wasn't was I wanted, but at that point, I had three coats of paint on the walls, and was about ready to accept just about anything but blue. So our walls are now sort of green, and after a couple of weeks living with it, I think I like it better than gray. I'd never actually considered green for our walls, but it feels very organic and cozy.
Next, the den. (Or parlor. Or media room. Or "that weird little room off the stairs.") It has one west-facing window that is heavily shaded by the front porch, so it stays really dark most of the day. After doing exhaustive research on how to paint dark, cavelike rooms, the internet consensus was that I needed something bright and saturated. And that something absolutely had to be teal:
Source: Pinterest. I have no idea why teal. It looks great, so I'm not going to question it.
Sadly, Metro doesn't really offer a good teal, so it was off to Home Depot for samples. Since I tend to buy the mis-mixed and salvage paints, I generally don't use paint samples - favoring instead the "slap it up and see if we hate it" method - but because I was using the Expensive Storebought Paint, samples were necessary.
In the end, I settled on the shade second from right. The one on the far right I'd gotten a gallon of in the mis-mixed section, so I added a bunch of white and a bit of blue I had lying around (hoarder) to get the right shade. (I refuse to pay full price if it kills me.)
It turned out perfectly. I love it. It's a fabulously rich shade that is deep but not overwhelming.
Add some shelves, a new-to-us couch (thanks, Erik and Alex!) and some of the precious family heirlooms Mom's been dying to get out of their garage, and voila! A functioning media room. Apologies for the phone pictures - the color is much deeper than my washed-out camera is suggesting.
Because I am insane, I've had several projects going at once. Courtesy of Craigslist, we got a truckload of free brick a few weeks ago. (The brick was free. The truck was already ours.)
Please also note the giant free bookcases we rescued from the curb as well. (Hoarder.)
Just as I've gotten used to not scaring the driver by screaming "STOP STOP THERE'S A
FREE THING TURN AROUND", Jesse's also gotten used to pulling over to help me acquire stuff.
Previously there'd just been bark dust, giant weeds and random construction debris in the space between the garage and the house, and with the arrival of Jesse's fantastic birthday grill, a cute little brick patio was warranted. Something perhaps like a combination of these:
Source: Pinterest.
When I was growing up, Mom had Corsican mint planted between the pavers under the clothesline, and although I grumbled about helping with laundry (grumpy teenagers are really just larval human beings), it was still such an integral part of summer, to be hanging cool, damp sheets with the fragrant mint underfoot. We needed mint in our patio like we needed teal walls, and it was going to happen. The original plan was to keep an eye on Craigslist until more free brick popped up, but two weeks later, I still hadn't found any - free brick is a hot commodity - and I was impatient enough that it was time to pay money for things. (Helloooo, Home Depot.)
You may think we just want a LOT of brick, but we really want ALL your brick.
We cleaned up. Apparently all of Portland is making patios.
Naturally, I decided to wait until it's 90 degrees outside to haul brick. I swear to god I've never sweated so much in my life. My sunglasses kept fogging up. It was gross, but totally worth it.
Ta dah! In addition to buying all of Home Depot's spare brick to mingle with our free brick, I also bought all of the nursery's corsican mint, in the hopes that maybe at least some of it will take and it won't all die. Grow, little green babies, grow!
Painting, patio...obviously not enough. My third project has been the dining table, which was supposed to be a surprise for Jesse, but I'd left the wood out when he came home from work, and I blurted out that I was making a table because I felt it was so obvious and he had to already know. His response? "Oh...I just figured you were making more shelves or something."
I would be the worst secret agent ever.
We had requirements for the dining table. First, it had to be big, both because the dining room / living room are one huge space and need appropriately-scaled furniture, and also because we have lots of friends and family, and they all need a place to sit. I wanted something that would comfortably sit 8-10 people. Second, Jesse very rarely has any decorating-related opinions, so when he does, I try to do everything I can to accommodate him. One thing he definitely likes is the industrial-style reclaimed dining tables we've been seeing at flea markets and architectural salvage stores. They're gorgeous, heavy, and very, very expensive. We saw one that cost more than our entire down payment on the house.
You get hipster decorator bonus points if the legs are from locally-sourced industrial machinery
and the top is organic barnwood.
We don't have a suitcase of unmarked bills to spend on a table. We also don't have access to an abandoned steel factory, or a dilapidated lumber mill. What we do have is a Home Depot and the Rebuilding Center.
I found steel workbench legs for $39 at HomeDepot.com and paid $7.50 for a whole pile of 2x8x6 boards at the Rebuilding Center. That's right, materials for my thousand-dollar table were less than a fancy haircut. TAKE THAT, RESTORATION HARDWARE.
I coated the legs in Citri-strip to remove the gray paint, and sanded off the bits that the Citri-strip didn't get. The goal was to make brand-new steel look properly weathered and old.
Then I sprayed the legs with straight vinegar, and left them to rust overnight, which is brilliant, because within a few hours, there were thick patches of rust. Instant patina! I also added several coats of Oil-Rubbed Bronze spray paint, sanding in between the coats to make it look rough and uneven. When I was (mostly) satisfied, I sealed them with a matte acrylic, and built the table deck.
The main problem with buying reclaimed wood is that it's a bit warped. (Yeah, yeah, much like the table builder. I know you're thinking it.) I spent three days sanding down the top, and it's still a bit uneven, although I've gotten very comfortable with my hand planer. (Thanks, Dad!) It's not so uneven that I anticipate food sliding off the plates, though. Should be fine. Right? Right. So I called it good, and stained it with the aforementioned can of hoarded deck stain. (See, that's why I hoard. I might need something.)
The end result is just about what I was hoping for.
It looks like a home! Not just a big, weirdly empty space.
Hey baby, nice legs.
Eventually, I'll build leaves to put in these slots, but for now, we can still seat 8 people.
And voila, a table. The chairs are courtesy of Mom's garage. And speaking of donated furniture, the buffet is a fantastic freebie from our friends Faith and Janet, via their basement.
Pecan likes pretty much everything she sees. And by "likes", I mean "sits on".
And what's that I see off in the kitchen?
Bar stools! And another fluffy butt. Only one of those was on clearance at Target. (And it sure wasn't the cat.)
Last night, we went to IKEA for this weekend's project materials. I'll try to post the end results sooner, rather than later.
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